Navigating the Apocalypse — What is this blog about?

Here is the situation we find ourselves in today at this pivotal moment early in the twenty-first century: We are basically apes with enhanced frontal lobes, with behavior instincts and emotions optimized for communal life in small wondering bands of hunter/gatherers. Many of these instincts and emotions we share with other mammals going back millions of years. Despite our many behavior instincts unsuited for an advanced civilization, we’ve built a global civilization by developing cultures and institutions that help us mold our behavior. Today our civilization is relatively peaceful and making substantial progress at improving the overall quality of life of most people on many fronts. Despite being built on a flawed foundation, we have the opportunity for additional widespread and rapid improvements if we manage it right.

However, our civilization is fragile and under stress. As it becomes larger, more complex, as it puts greater strain on the environment, and as it deals with increasing rates of change, the questions before us are: can we maintain our culture and institutions, and keep improving them to deal with a more advanced society? Or will the fundamental incompatibilities in our instincts and emotions eventually limit or even cause a decline in our civilization? Will the increasingly rapid rate of technical change pose a challenge too great for our comparatively slowly changing culture and institutions to deal with? Will we degrade the natural environment we depend on, and in the process increase the stress on our social systems and contribute to a decline?

Any system that overshoots its limits is invariably followed by a decline We appear to have overshot the sustainable carrying capacity of the Earth due to increasing human population and use of resources. This suggest that a decline in our human civilization is highly likely, if not inevitable. This could range from a modest but painful reduction in human population and resource use until we achieve a more sustainable civilization, to an almost complete collapse accompanied by violent conflicts and war. How our civilization fares in the long run may depend on what we do in the next few decades. History is littered with fallen civilizations and we are not immune.

So we find ourselves at one of the most important times to be alive in human history. It is both exciting and scary. We face unprecedented levels of opportunity and danger. The outcome is not determined by and sort of historical laws. The current generations of humans have the opportunity, and responsibility, to influence the future direction of humanity for a long time to come. With the right approach, humankind will not only survive, but thrive. With the wrong approach, civilization will face a range of disasters, and the long-term outcome depends on how well we navigate the apocalypse. How our civilization fares in the long run is on our hands.